China Telecom To Start iPhone 5 Pre-Orders In Late September

Despite the fact that Apple has still not announced the iPhone 5, a number of carriers have already begin marketing and accepting pre-orders for the device. A new report suggests that China Telecom, China’s third-largest mobile provider, will begin accepting pre-orders at the end of the month.

The report comes to us from NextWeb, and continues on to suggest that China Telecom has set aside nearly $235 million dollars to spend on advertising and marketing for the iPhone 5.

Referring to their marketing tactic as a “Dragon Plan,” local China Telecom branches are already preparing for the iPhone 5 by beginning staff training and in-store advertising program. One local office has even installed an LED screen advertising the upcoming handset.

Following September pre-orders, official retail sales of the iPhone 5 will begin in October. China Telecom is China’s third-largest mobile provider, Apple’s only Chinese carrier partner so far, and is presently the world’s largest CDMA network operator with around 100 million subscribers.

If rumors are accurate, China Telecom will be the second carrier to begin advertising pre-orders, with Germany’s Deutsch Telecom having reportedly begun accepting pre-orders earlier this month.

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J. Glenn Künzler

Glenn is Managing Editor at MacTrast, and has been using a Mac since he bought his first MacBook Pro in 2006. Now he's up to his neck in Apple, and owns an old iBook, a 2012 iMac with an extra Thunderbolt display for good measure, a 4th-generation iPad, an iPad mini, 2 iPhones, and a Mac Mini that lives at the neighbor's house. He lives in a small town in Utah, enjoys bacon more than you can possibly imagine, and is severely addicted to pie.